Steelwork contractor expands premises with £2.5M investment

Scotland-based steelwork contractor AJ Engineering & Construction Services is expanding its premises in a £2.5M investment over the next three years, which it said will allow it to more than double its production capabilities and employ more staff.

The development will see its existing buildings in Forres being refurbished and a new automated fabrication facility being installed.

Owned by Alan James, the company currently employs approximately 80 staff including seven apprentices. The company’s plans mean that over the next three years up to 36 jobs will be created.

Mr James said: “We had previously rented the buildings and ground from Moray Council and we were delighted that they agreed to sell the site to enable our future development plans. Final agreement was reached at the end of October and we can now push on with the development.

“Highlands and Island Enterprise (HIE) has been fully involved in the development of these plans and supported us in this project with a grant of £420,000 for our investment in the first and second phases.

“The plan now is to refurbish the buildings and to install a new automated fabrication facility at the site. The purpose of this investment is to make us more efficient and it will provide the company with the ability to increase its throughput but at a lower production cost. 

“The new equipment will mean that our skilled fabricators will be available to concentrate on the more technical projects and no longer have to spend time measuring or marking beams or drilling them as the new machine will be able to do all this automatically from the details downloaded directly from our drawing office. With the skilled workforce being available we would be able to seek a greater number of complex projects.”